Creation or Evolution: A Letter to Emily, Part 2

So a week or two ago, I wrote a post about the scientific problems with both evolutionary and creationist views of the world. To summarize, I think Darwinian evolution makes more of the scientific evidence than is warranted, while creationism makes much less. While that debate is interesting in itself, the ramifications of the answer are what truly make the question important.Let’s follow both sides of this debate to their logical ends. First, I’ll deal with evolution.

Let’s imagine for a moment that evolution is true—the world and all life got here simply by chance and a long period of time. Since there is no God who had designed us for a purpose, it means that there is no purpose in our lives other than what we define for ourselves. This sounds very liberating, doesn’t it? To decide for myself what my purpose is, with no interference from any outside authority seems like a great way to live. But here’s the problem: without some absolute definition of life’s purpose, our own definitions are merely preferences. The same is true of morality. If we are all deciding for ourselves what is right and wrong, your rights and wrongs are no more authoritative than mine, no matter how extremely different they might be. Morality, like purpose, is reduced to mere preference. I like punk rock music, and maybe you like country (God forbid). There’s no objective way to say punk rock is better than country; it’s just what I like. I also prefer a nice scoop of plain vanilla ice cream to some fancy flavor full of candy bits and caramel sauce. You may have a different preference, but it is meaningless to say vanilla is wrong.

So lets bring this back into more substantial terms. Most people, most of the time believe that purposely killing an innocent person is wrong. What do we say though, to someone like Charles Manson, who does not necessarily hold this belief? What about the rapist, or the child molester? Just because most of us prefer to not to behave this way, on what basis can we say murder, rape, and child abuse are wrong? The inescapable conclusion is that there are no means of differentiating right from wrong. The very concepts of right and wrong become meaningless. We are left with a moral void that can only be filled by power: whoever has the ability to impose his or her preference on the rest of us gets to define morality. In other words, people are sent to prison for murder, rape or child abuse not because these actions are wrong, but because the government prefers we not do these things and has the power to enforce laws against them. It’s not a big distinction so long as the government's preferences align closely to my own. But what about Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, or Mao’s China? Those governments had preferences for killing millions of people, and also had the power to enforce those preferences. As long as morality has no absolute source, we are forced to accept this situation as well. It doesn’t matter, though, because those millions of lives had no real purpose to begin with (remember? we’re all just here by chance). Without purpose, there is no value, and why should we cry over the destruction of the worthless? While we may stoically face this conclusion as our lot in life, not even the most hardened atheist is really prepared to live as if this is true. Just try to put a nativity scene on the city hall lawn and you’ll hear about how “wrong” it is to violate the First Amendment ban on state-sponsored religion.

Clearly, humanity needs some absolute standard for morality—life is unlivable otherwise. A moral standard, however, implies that life has purpose and meaning; to have meaning requires someone to mean it.

So we have arrived at the existential reality that we can’t explain life without God. I laid out my case in the last post for why I don’t think literal young-Earth creationism is scientifically viable. I find the theories of intelligent design to be appealing, because it considers the scientific observations, comes to a rational conclusion that the world was designed by some Intelligence, and that’s where the theory stops. It doesn’t attempt to make a scientific case for the Christian God, or the Biblical story of creation. Science may have plenty to say on how the world came to be, but it can tell us nothing about why it came to be. However science does explain the hows of life, though, the answers must recognize that there is a why. Conversely, religion may explain the whys through a sovereign and loving God, science shows us through the hows that the world is much more elegant than we imagine.

Creation or Evolution: A Letter to Emily, Part 1

So a few days ago, my daughter posted a question on her Facebook page asking, “Evolution or creation?” I swelled with pride at the thought of my offspring openly considering both sides of an important question, rather than blindly accepting one conclusion or another. I therefore offered the ever helpful “neither.” She responded with the exasperated, monosyllabic request for clarification: “DAD?!” I promised her a more detailed explanation of my noncommittal answer. In this, part 1, I’ll explain why neither creationism nor evolution stands up scientifically.



Dear Emily,
As with most debates, the truth often lies somewhere in between the extremes. I am only going to concern myself with the extremes at this point: literal, biblical creation and neo-Darwinian evolution. Some of my arguments can be extrapolated to the less extreme versions of the theoretical continuum.

I’ll deal first with the creation side. This side includes a belief that the Earth is a few thousand years old, and that it appeared ex nihilo (out of nothing) essentially as we see it today. The variety of living things in the world are all the results of special creative acts of God. A catastrophic flood, which covered the Earth and destroyed all life except that taking refuge aboard Noah’s ark, is cited as an explanation for mass extinctions and geological oddities such as marine fossils in the Himalaya.

There is abundant laboratory evidence that the Earth has been around for a few billion years. Well-constrained measurements of the ratios of various radioactive isotopes in rocks confirm that rocks at the Earth’s surface range from very young to a few billion years old. Some creationists might argue that God created the world too look very old. There is no scientific way to test this hypothesis, and no real theological basis for it, so I’ll not say more about it.

So given that the geological record shows a range of ages from very old to very young, and that different living species appear and disappear throughout that record, we cannot really accept the hypothesis that all species came into being in the first seven days of the world’s existence.

Finally, the flood. There is no consistent marker in the geological record to indicate a truly global flood. I’m not sure that there is enough water on the Earth to completely cover all of the continents anyway, especially if the tallest mountain ranges have always been as tall as they are today (as is the implication in creationist hypotheses). I haven’t done the actual calculations, but the possibility that the Earth has enough water to raise sea levels above even moderately high mountain peaks seems remote.

So how about neo-Darwinism? This theory contends that random genetic mutations—typographical errors in the DNA of some organism—acted upon by natural selection, are responsible for the biologic diversity in the world today. So, the theory goes, suppose some poor little blind worm was wriggling about in the dark trying to survive. Eventually it had a little baby worm that was born with a sort of “birth defect:” a light-sensitive patch—not really vision like we have, but able to sense light and dark. You might imagine that this ability might give this particular worm an edge over others. It can find food a little more easily, and more importantly, mate more effectively (assuming this is a worm that mates…it’s just an illustration after all). Natural selection is just the principle that mutant features that allow the individual to reproduce and pass on the mutation to another generation are perpetuated, or selected. Eventually, over many generations, the mutation becomes a normal characteristic, simply because it allows its owner to reproduce more than others.

There are lots of problems with this idea as well. First is that random mutations are far more likely to result in a fatal error in the genetic code than it is to come up with something useful for natural selection to select. Most useful biologic innovations, like the development of sight, for example, require a number of separate parts, none of which are useful on their own. This then requires a number of fortuitous mutations to appear simultaneously. So the light sensitive cells need changes to the organism’s nervous system in order to interpret the signals from the cells. So the probability that a single useful modification could come about by this mechanism are pretty small. But evolutionists assert that every part of the progression from a single self-replicating chain of DNA to fish to lizards to chimps to evolutionists came about by just such astronomically improbable events.

Furthermore, while it is admittedly a pretty clever idea that Darwin came up with, the real problem is that there is no actual evidence to suggest that random mutations and natural selection have really done anything. No one has demonstrated that one species can actually develop from another. Most of the theory is based on conjecture and speculation, which in any other scientific field would never qualify as theory.

In the end, both sides start with their preferred conclusion, and pick out the evidence that supports it and comes up with stories to explain away the rest. Neither side really explains anything except their proponents’ religious views. And this is what makes the question a very important one to understand. Creationism sees God everywhere, while evolution demands he is nowhere. The ramifications of this distinction are enormous. More on that in part 2.

Homeschool Moms and Why I Don't Go to Church

So my kids' tae kwon do class is all homeschooled children, and most of the parents, as far as I can tell, are church people. I base this inference on snippets of overheard conversations about their various roles in their respective churches, the creationist science curriculum they use, and the various things they pray about.


One afternoon last week, while the kids were in their class, the parents were sitting around the viewing area chit-chatting, mostly about homeschooling topics. At one point, one of the moms entered the viewing area and started telling the other moms about the moral weakness of some person in her life and how frustrating it is for her because, "you just can't teach someone to have morals." (As an aside, I have to wonder how one acquires moral values, if they aren't taught.)

After my class ended, I went into the boys' locker room to fetch my son. As we walked out this same woman stopped him and said her son wanted to talk to him. The other boy then told Jacob, "When you called me a baby white belt it hurt my feelings." Jacob's response was that he didn't say it. The mom then polled the other two boys that were with her, and they both agreed that Jacob had, in fact, called the boy a baby. Jacob continued to deny it, but I (regrettably) told him to apologize. In the best angry, but non-shouting, voice he could muster, he growled, "Fine. Sorry." I said something about not calling other people names, and we left. Afterward, I felt terrible for not sticking up for my son better than I did. But that's another story. I asked Jacob about it later, and he maintains that all he said was that the boy was a white belt and couldn't participate in sparring yet, and I believe him.

I took the kids to class again today, and about twenty minutes before the end, the same woman started telling one of the other moms about how her son had been bullied in the locker room by another boy who called him "baby white belt." I was sitting right there! I had to stop her and tell her that my son did not in fact call her kid any kind of name, and I reminded her that the other boys who corroborated the story were brothers or friends, and of course they're going to say he did. ("But my boys don't lie!") I also pointed out that her son is indeed a white belt, so what's the problem? (My wife said to me later, that even if Jacob had called the kid a baby, that also is apparently true. She's so funny.) Needless to say, I was pretty hot about the whole thing (and still am, which is why I am writing this now).

This event is infuriating on its own, but it fits into a broader context for me. While I can say some of the kindest, most loving and compassionate people I know are church people, most of the best friends I have had in my life have been non-Christians. But for the last decade or so, the defining question of my life has been this: why is it that the meanest, most hateful, dark-hearted people I know are church people? The people that have treated me the worst, gossiped about me the most, ostracized me the farthest, judged me most harshly, have been church people. Isn't this backwards?

I have not lost my faith in Christ. I believe that every person needs redeeming, and that Jesus came and through his death and resurrection fulfilled that need. I believe there's nothing I have to do to earn salvation; all I have to do is ask. But I have lost a lot of faith in Christians, and have not been actively involved in a church for ten years or so. I have missed having a church family from time to time, but when I have tried to re-engage, I am quickly reminded why I quit going to begin with: church people are cliquish and self-absorbed at best, and spiteful and mean at worst. In my most recent attempt, I attended a church regularly and played guitar in the worship band once or twice a month for some time. When I realized that far more people knew me only as Catherine's Husband than by my actual name, I dropped out again. After several months, I don't think anyone has noticed my absence.

Anyway, Christians have a reputation in our culture of being vengeful, petty, and bigoted. While it's easy to blame it on the left-wing media distorting the image of the church, I'm not sure the reputation is entirely undeserved. When a Christian mom can publicly decry the moral failings of another person, and then a week later spread gossip about a six-year old boy it's not hard to believe the popular perceptions of the church. Jesus told his followers that the world will recognize them by their love for one another. From my experience, though, I can usually spot the Christians by opposite characteristics. Can someone explain this discrepancy to me?

My Proposal for Fixing America. As If It Matters.

OK, so I recently opened an ill-advised can of worms voicing, in a roundabout way, my displeasure with Congress's recent passing of the monstrous health care bill. I must have not been very clear on my actual point, because my liberal friends (you know who you are) have been posting long, admittedly well-reasoned, but point-missingly long responses. I'd like to spell out then my actual point.

But first let's just agree that conservatives are feckless, boorish philistines, and liberals are erudite and compassionate literati. Kieth Olbermann and Rachel Maddow say it's so, so it must be so. If you are thinking about posting any more responses along these lines, you needn't bother. Yes, yes, Sarah Palin is like a barbie doll; Dick Cheney is Satan's second cousin. Barrack Obama gives us all tingles up our legs when he speaks, Chris Matthews, and my, isn't Nancy Pelosi lovely.

Also, let's agree that Republicans have done unsavory things in the past as well. Does it make it OK for the Democrats to carry on as they have? I'm not convinced, but OK...let's table that discussion. Everything wrong with our country up to this point is George W. Bush's and Dick Cheney's fault. OK?

Here's what I was trying to say in my Facebook post: Our Congress has become so disengaged from the American people whom they are supposed to be serving, that what we need is a good house (and Senate) cleaning. My proposal is that we need to elect 535 honest Americans who will lay out their positions plainly, promise to serve exactly one term in whichever chamber and then go back to private life. They are then unconcerned with re-election in two or six years, and thus more able to actually do what their constituents elected them to do. And here's what seems to be the crux of misunderstanding: I don't care which party, if any, these 535 people belong to.

Imagine this scenario, for example. Your congressional district has two candidates, and they stand up before you and your neighbors. Candidate A:

"Hello. My name is Phil S. Tine. I run the Lucifer Insurance Agency, which specializes in Evil Insurance. I stand for minimal government intrusion into your lives, and will only vote for bills that enable you to make your own way through life. I believe the powers of the Federal Government should be limited to those explicitly granted to it, and those expressly denied to the states, by the Constitution. I believe you should have the right to choose where your children go to school without being penalized by taxes. I believe private companies should remain private, and you have the right to run your business the way you like. If you elect me to the House of Representatives I will apply these principles of personal freedom to the greatest extent possible for two years, and then go back to my insurance agency without a further peep. Thank you."

And then Candidate B:

"Like, good evening, man. I'm Lucky Dreadlocks and I run the Moonbeam Hackey Sack and Birkenstock Co-op and Afghan Restaurant (That's some good labna!). I believe in a socialist nanny state that takes all of your money and spreads it around evenly to everyone. Don't worry about stuff if I am elected, because the government is your Daddy and will take care of you. Even though this sort of system has never, ever worked anywhere ever, I'm pretty sure with a little wishing on a star and creative arithmetic we can make it work. I believe I and my liberal cronies know better than you how to live your life and raise your kids, so we'll tell you what to do every step of the way. I believe the best way to deal with terrorists and criminals is have a big group hug. So sit back, watch some cartoons, and drink some 'herbal' tea (which I'll push to  legalize straight away). Vote for me, dudes, and I'll spend two years--no more and no less--turning America into the East Germany we've always dreamed of!"

Now, you and I go vote for whichever of these people appeals the most to us. Obviously, I'll vote for Phil, and you'll probably vote for Lucky. That's fine. All I want is for all of our representatives to tell us plainly and honestly what they stand for, and if we buy it, go to Washington and do those things that they said they would do without succumbing to political skulduggery and lobbyist bribery, and then go back home to their regular lives. I don't care how much previous political experience they have, as long as they are honest and have common sense. I don't want them to get a year in and abandon their responsibilities in order to run for some other office. Is that too much to ask?

On the Olympic Games

If you're like me, you've noticed that the 2010 Winter Olympic Games have started. Also, if you're like me, you love the Winter Olympics. So far I have enjoyed watching ski jumping, freestyle skiing, luge, speed skating--both short and long track. I've even watched a bit of biathlon. All of this has raised a few questions for me, which I'd like to share.

I was watching the women's freestyle skiing the other night, and I began to wonder how some of these sports come to be. The freestyle skiing, in particular seems an unlikely sport. After a bit of research* I learned that it originated when some hapless rube skied off the well-groomed trail and into the woods and the rough snow pack it contained. He then hit a particularly large mound of snow and went flying into the air, skis crossed behind him, and as he tumbled through the air, he eventually landed in the upper branches of a tree. Well, his skiing buddies saw all of this and assumed he meant to take this route and followed suit. The rest is history, and the sport has evolved into the test of steel nerves, springy knees, and insurance coverage for chiropractic services that we observe every four years in the Winter Games.

Then I had an idea for a new sport in the Summer Games--perhaps the International Olympic Committee will consider it for the London Games in 2012. Here's my idea: Construct a street with a slope of say, 20 degrees. Fill it with potholes, and put two ramps on it. Then get guys to ride bikes down the hill, over the potholes, and when they get to a ramp, they have to do some sort of aerial trick. Genius, huh? The athletes will be judged on technique navigating the potholes, the complexity and precision of their jumps, and the time it takes to get to the bottom.

Here's another Olympics question: why is figure skating considered a sport, but ballet dancing is not? They're essentially the same thing, only one is on skates, the other not. Consider this analogy: Speed skating is to sprinting as figure skating is to ballet. Am I right? They don't perform the Nutcracker or Giselle in the Summer Games, so why do we have to endure ballet on ice in the Winter? The judging of ice skating is totally subjective, too. If you had two sets of judges watching the same sequence of skating performances, you could get two different sets of results, couldn't you? I would much rather see something like snowball fights--team and individual. Which ever side gets the most hits on the other team wins, or whichever side has guys still standing at the end wins. In any case, there is a clear, unquestioned winner.

There are plenty of sports in the Winter Olympics that I get. Speed skating and downhill skiing, for example. You go as fast as you can and whoever covers the distance in the shortest time, or crosses the finish line first, wins. But suffice it to say, if I ran things, there would be a few changes.

One final note: I watched the Parade of Nations in the opening ceremonies. Ethiopia had one competitor, a cross-country skier (note: cross-country skiing is to long distance running as figure skating is to ballet. I'm just saying...). No luge team. I knew the baby was lying.


*Actual research may be fictitious

My Baby: The Big Liar

So our family recently adopted a four-month old baby boy from Ethiopia. He's mostly a sweet little guy and happy. However, I've discovered a minor character flaw, which gives me cause for some concern: he lies a lot. And not just little white lies, like, "Hey, Dad, you look like you've lost weight." He tells the biggest whoppers you'll ever want to hear. And I don't know what he hopes to gain--the stories he tells are so unbelievable, and yet he tells them with such seriousness and conviction. It's really weird.

For example, one morning we were sitting in our hotel room in Addis Ababa, and he told me that he was a member of the Ethiopian luge team, and would be competing in the Olympics, and did I think I could drive him to Vancouver when we got back. I said I didn't think Ethiopia even has a luge team, but in any case, you're a baby and couldn't possibly have the gross motor skills necessary to control a luge. Plus, you can't even walk, let alone get a running start to get the luge going. He changed the subject and spit up all over his clothes.

Then, on the plane trip home, he started acting weird any time one particularly cute flight attendant came around. He'd pretend to be asleep or turn his head the other way. I asked him what the problem was, and he said that he used to date her, and it didn't end well. He had this whole tale about how she couldn't get over him, and he had to get a restraining order, I don't remember all of the details, but I'm pretty sure it was all lies again. I mean, she didn't seem to recognize him at all, and besides, he's only been around for for four months. I really don't think that's enough time to go develop a relationship, go through a bad breakup, and finalize court orders, is it? Maybe if she was really bat-crap crazy, but she always got my drink order right, so I think she was OK.

Last Wednesday, he asked if he could borrow my cell phone, because he was expecting a call. He didn't say from whom, but just the idea that someone was going to call him seemed a bit far-fetched. I mean he's only been in this country for five days, and the only people he knows are me, his mother, his sister, and his brother. And he's always with us, so we have no need to call him. It was just really strange that he would make something like that up.

But the most egregious example came last night. It was about 1:30 in the morning, and I was up giving him a bottle. In between sucks, he paused, looked me right in the eye, and said, "Hey, man...did I ever tell you about when I invented the Snuggie?" At first, I was taken aback that he addressed me as, "Hey, man." Then, I was just shocked that a baby from Ethiopia even knew about the Snuggie. But then it dawned on me that the Snuggie has been around for more than the four months since he was born.

I don't know what to make of this. Is it normal for a baby to be such a blatant liar? Hopefully it's just a phase that he'll outgrow.

A Week in Addis Ababa

So my wife and I just returned from about a week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We went there to pick up our son, whom we adopted. After about 18 months of filling out paperwork, getting documents notarized, having my fingerprints recorded, and writing large checks, the process culminated in the smiling and drooling face of a sweet four-month old baby boy.

Our adoption agency, All God's Children International, was nothing but great through the entire process: responsive to all of our questions and anxieties, helpful with the required paperwork, and encouraging when things seemed to move slowly. And the orphanage in Addis Ababa, Hannah's Hope, was truly heart-changing. The workers there amazed me with their capacity to love those children like their own flesh and blood, knowing they would be going away to new families. And the children themselves astounded me with their joy.

In the summer of 2008, my wife and I discovered that we each, independently, had been thinking about adopting. When we then began to explore the possibilities, we reached an easy conclusion that Ethiopia was where our next child should come from. As she told someone earlier today, there really was never any question about that. However...

We originally began talking with a different adoption agency. We were told, though, that Ethiopia does not accept parents who take antidepressant medications. Thus, because of my prescription, we were ineligible. Disappointed, we spoke with several other adoption agencies, only to be told the same thing. We had pretty well given up on adopting from Ethiopia when we contacted AGCI. We never expressed interest in any specific country, but only filled out an online pre-application. When one of the workers there responded to our inquiry, she said, "Well, it looks like Ethiopia, or (I can't remember now what the other option was) would be the best bets for your family." Incredulous, we asked, "Are you sure? You know I take an antidepressant, right?" In any case, to make a long story less long, all those other agencies have it wrong, as proven by the little boy asleep upstairs.

So finally, last week, we boarded a plane in Washington, DC and 17 hours later, emerged in the fragrant sunshine of Addis Ababa. The following day, along with five other couples, we went to Hannah's Hope orphanage to meet our new child. He has been very content, happy to play or sleep, and only really fusses when he's hungry--a problem that is easily solved with a bottle of formula.

There was one aspect of the journey we didn't expect, though: being stuck in a foreign hotel room for hours on end with nothing to do but contemplate the tectonic shift in our family that we'd just incurred was a perfect recipe for panic attacks and homesickness. Our agency's online community of adoptive parents were very good at providing practical advice on what to pack and details regarding the administrative process. They shared our anticipatory joy of being on our way to Ethiopia. But no one ever said, "There will come a moment when you wonder if you've spent countless hours and thousands of dollars on a huge mistake. You will question why you you wanted to be kept up at night feeding a baby and changing diapers. You will worry about the effect of a new sibling on your other children." So to anyone who reads this who is in the process of adopting, I will tell you these things. But I will also tell you that you are normal to feel this way. I know this to be true, because all of the other families in our little group with whom we discussed these feelings had similar experiences.

Please don't misunderstand. I have absolutely no regrets about our decision to adopt our son. I only wish someone had prepared us for the overwhelming fear that fell on us as we contemplated the enormity of what was happening. While our hearts were filled with anxiety at times, our minds never lost hold of the knowledge that God had led us to this place, and he had faithfully provided everything we needed to see our adoption come to fruition.

Of course, I think much of our anxiety could have been diminished had we spent more time with the other families, rather than cooped up in the hotel room. The problem is that the hotel where we stayed had no common area where we could gather and talk. But I think we all felt like we would have benefited from that. So, again, to anyone preparing to travel to get your adopted child, a word of advice: take the lead in finding somewhere to gather regularly with other adopting families. Even if it is just your own hotel room, make the effort to spend time together.

In any case, we're glad to be home again. Our newest family member is sleeping soundly, although after a nine hour time change for him, I don't know for how long...

Be Prepared to Give a Defense, OK?

So an acquaintance of mine recently posted this on his Facebook page"

"Jesus told us there would be earthquakes like birth pangs. They will get stronger and more frequent before the end of the age. Are you aware of the signs of the times? Read Matt 24."

As both a Christian and a scientist, I decided to offer a

response that went like this:

"Maybe, but this is the first major quake in that region in 200 years, and it's on a major tectonic boundary. Just saying..."

The initial response to my comment (by someone other than the original poster) was that the statement didn't reference a particular area of the world but simply made a statement that wars and disasters are signs of the end of times. The notion that the comment was made independently of any recent events in Haiti strains credulity a bit, but it's possible--I don't really know, so I'll let that go. I tried to explain that unless one has statistically defensible evidence that earthquakes are actually increasing in frequency and intensity, as is asserted, it's merely a statement that has no specific relevance, other than information. "On rainy Saturday mornings, I like pancakes for breakfast." That's good to know, I guess, but does it call for any response from you? If it is a rainy Saturday morning and I am staying at your house, then it might be polite to cook me up some flapjacks. Otherwise, the statement has no application--that is, it is practically meaningless (I am using the term "practically" to mean that which is related to practice or action rather than the theoretical or ideal).

Well, this brought on several other commentators to remind me that God said these things (about the earthquakes, not the pancakes--although I am pretty sure God does like pancakes as well. That's another blog post, though), thus they are true, and not practically meaningless. With this background, now allow me to make two points--one about the statement at hand in particular and another about conversations like this in general.

Notice that I never questioned the truth of the statement per se. I never claimed that Jesus did not say the things about earthquakes, wars, and famines. Nor did I claim that Jesus's statement was false. I can read Matthew 24 (and have done so) as well as anyone else. So I recognize that he said these things. And if the Son of God says such things will happen I have no reason not to believe that he a) knows it to be true and b) is telling us the truth. What I am questioning (and continue to question) is the relevance of the statement. Does the claim that earthquakes will increase in frequency and severity prior to the end of days have any bearing on today's world? Are we seeing this increase in seismicity and thus is it reasonable to assume that nature is now pointing to God's imminent (whatever that means) return? Well, lets see...

I found some data from the United States Geological Survey (accessed 14 January 2010) that shows the number of earthquakes of magnitude 7 and above that occurred each year between 1900 and 2005. I created a time-series chart from the data; it is shown below:

(I realize the image quality is not great; the data begin at 1900, and the numbers increase by 20 up to 2020. The Y-axis is number of M7 or greater earthquakes, ranging from 0 to 45 by 5. If anyone is interested I can e-mail you my spreadsheet and chart.)

I haven't done any rigorous statistical analysis, but looking at the data I don't see any marked upward trends. If anything, it appears that large earthquakes have been on the decline since about 1945. There is a well-known relationship between earthquake size and frequency of that size earthquake as well, which says that magnitude 6 earthquakes occur about ten times as frequently as magnitude 7s, and for each M6, there will be 10 M5s, and so forth. It goes the other way as well, obviously, so that for every ten M7s, you would expect only 1 M8. So the fact that this chart only shows M7 and above is adequate evidence to suggest that seismicity in general has in fact not been increasing. I suspect that if you had this type of data for a longer period of time, it would all flatten out and, on average, be fairly constant.

So maybe my acquaintance was not intending to imply that seismicity is actually increasing, but rather reminding us that if, in the future, we do see large earthquakes become more frequent, then we'll know something unusual is coming. If that is the case, then fine--the statement is accurate, as far as it goes. I misunderstood, and carry on.

Now to my second point--the manner in which Christians, especially evangelicals for some reason--approach these sorts of questions: Why is the first impulse to respond to another's doubts (or perceived doubts, in this case) with something like, "It's true because God said so. It's in the Bible." If the intent is to close down the discussion immediately, then it works very well. However, it isn't a satisfying answer. It's not really an answer at all. To me translates like this: "I can't be bothered to consider your question or point of view closely enough to offer a thoughtful response. If I did I am afraid you might be correct, and I'd have to admit a failure of understanding." What I don't get is if we're convinced that God's word is truth, why should we be reluctant to put it up against contrary or different viewpoints? Truth is truth, right? No matter what claims someone might make that contradicts truth, it's still truth. If, however, I believe something to be true, but is actually false, once I recognize my error, I have a moral obligation to correct my belief, don't I? I certainly don't wish to cling to false beliefs merely to escape the pain and embarrassment of admitting I was wrong.

What's more, is if a Christian, or anyone for that matter, makes a public assertion of truth, it is intellectually irresponsible to then refuse to defend the statement when questioned. It's also unbiblical, as 1 Peter 3:15 instructs us to always be prepared to give a defense of the hope that you have. Feckless attempts to kill the discussion by appealing to divine revelation are certainly not a ready defense, especially to someone who doesn't view the Bible as revealed truth. The point is to make an argument that your reliance on scripture as a source of knowledge and wisdom is reasonable. Being a Christian doesn't relieve you of the burden of rational discourse. If you wish to argue that God's Word doesn't need anyone to defend it, then let it speak for itself, and don't make the statements to begin with!

My purpose here is not to pick fights with other believers. But I think the church needs to recognize that trying demonstrate spiritually maturity and deep faith in God at the expense of intellectual responsibility has had a tremendous alienating effect, not just on nonbelievers, but on believers like myself who find themselves ostracized from the rest of the body of Christ because they want to believe for the right reasons. There are a lot of people who are willing to be convinced that God loves them and wants the best for them. But if you aren't willing to do the convincing, then sit down, be quiet, and let the Holy Spirit do it for you.

But then again, what do I know...

Viva La Revolucion!

So it's nearly Christmas again. As usual we are bombarded simultaneously by marketing campaigns making a case that love comprises a bunch of plastic stuff and blinking gadgets and sugary sentiments proclaiming that Christmas is about Children, Love, and Peace. I will suggest a third alternative.

Consider this: when Luke described the angels appearing before shepherds as "a great company of the heavenly host," he did not intend to conjure images of your church's ladies hand-bell choir. Rather, it is a military allusion. Instead of middle-aged women in kitty-cat Christmas sweaters beneath their gold and burgundy choir robes, it portrays an image of ten thousand highly-trained and tightly-wound Marines amassed at the border of enemy territory. And they came to issue a declaration of war.

The birth of Christ was an invasion, a covert operation perhaps (who would ever suspect a baby born in a barn...), but an invasion nonetheless. It is the moment went God began a campaign of liberation, when he began to take back His rightful territory from an occupying army. You and I were a nation oppressed by an enemy regime, but on that night an infant's cries were the first shouts of revolution.

To be sure, Christmas is about love, inasmuch as God's audacity was motivated by his love for you and me, but Good Friday is really about Love. And Christmas is about peace, inasmuch as the end goal of the operation is defeat of enemy aggressors and the establishment of peace, but Easter is really about Peace made possible by God's victory over death. And Christmas is about children, inasmuch as his victory makes possible our adoption into his family. But make no mistake: Christmas is about a turning point in history, a decisive moment that separates "Before" from "After." It is our D-Day, Bethlehem our Normandy. Because of Christmas, Eden will be restored.

Christmas is about the steadfast ferocity of a Warrior-King assaulting hostile territory, determined to take back what is rightfully his. Anything else is merely the cowardly and bankrupt "happy holidays" of our politically correct world.

Merry Christmas to all and Viva La Revolucion!

An Open Letter to a Fellow Traveler

Dear Passenger 16E on Northwest Flight 2386 from Anchorage to Minneapolis:

I want to publicly thank you for a delightful six hours yesterday. Sitting next to you was the highlight of my week. When you later fell asleep leaning four inches from my left ear, I couldn't believe my good luck.

From the first time you shoved me off the armrest I knew that you were something special. Other less sensitive people might have called you a feckless, inconsiderate jerk, but not me. I know the frustration and disappointment of boarding a plane, only to find I have to share it with others. In fact, I have seriously considered running for president, governor, or California senator just so I can enjoy private air travel. You might consider this as well. With your charm and meaty aroma, how could America not love you as much as I do?

I must admit that I was taken aback when, after my several ill-advised attempts to find the smallest space at the back of the arm rest, you loudly accused me of...what was it? Ah, yes, you shouted, "You're trying to crowd me out!" In retrospect, I completely agree that you should never have had to tolerate such effrontery from the likes of me. Please believe I meant no offense. And when I told you in response that you are like a child, I meant it in the most complimentary way. I mean, just because I paid at least as much as you did, I would never have presumed that you weren't entitled to all of your cubic meter and half of mine. I just hope I was able to mold myself to the wall of the plane enough to allow you to spread out like you were in your La-Z-Boy at home. I was waiting for you to growl at the flight attendant, "Fetch me a beer, and hand me the remote." Clearly, you deserve to fly in as much luxury a economy class allows. I regret now that I did not offer to stand quietly by the lavatory so you could stretch out even more. But the moment has passed, and all I can do now is ask your forgiveness. I hope we can remain friends.

I rather doubt you know how to use a computer, or for that matter, read--someone of your importance certainly has people for that. However, if you read this, please call me. I'd like to have a chance to make things up to you. Perhaps we can fly kites together or get an ice cream cone. I'd like that.

Your humble servant,
Kenny Lopez

What I really need is a great big crowbar

So my son and I were on our way to see the St. Louis Blues play the San Jose Sharks a few days ago. I know next to nothing about hockey, but he loves it, so off we went. We got no further than about two miles from the house when the left rear tire blew out. No big deal - I pulled into the deserted, but surprisingly well lit library parking lot, popped the trunk, and extracted the goofy little spare and the jack that always leaves me with bloody knuckles. We had plenty of time to change a tire and still get to the arena in time for the game.

I got the car jacked up and popped off the wheel cover. I took off the four lug nuts, and put them in the wheel cover like you're supposed to (we had just watched A Christmas Story, so I knew this much). When I went to pull the wheel off, it wouldn't budge. After exhausting all ideas I could come with - which took about eighteen seconds - I called the guy I bought the car from a couple of years ago: my brother-in-law.

"Hey, Dave...this is Scott"
"Hey Scott, what' s going on?"
"Well...I just had flat tire in the Focus, and I can't figure out how to get the wheel off. Do you know how to do it?"
"Did you take the lug nuts off?"
"Hang on...let me check....yep, they're off."
"All the way off?"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down there, Mr. Goodwrench. Can you walk me through this?"
"You know how you were turning them at first? Keep doing that some more, OK?"
"OK, lug nuts are off. It still won't budge. It's like it's welded on or something."
"I gotta be honest with you, Scott. The lug nuts thing is about all I've got. Maybe try muttering profanities."
"OK, thanks, Dave."
Just as I was about to hang up and commit to the profanity method, Dave says, "Hang on a minute...I'm going to pass the phone over to Aaron."
Aaron's my other brother-in-law. He's an honest-to-God car guy. i had mixed feelings about this, because on the one hand he's fairly likely to have an actual solution to offer. On the other hand, if I were the least bit competent in the automotive arts, and some slack-jawed rube called me to ask how to change a tire, there would be no end to the grief I would dish out. But beggars can't be choosers, so I waited for Aaron to come on the phone.
"Hey, Scott...what seems to be the problem."
"Well, I've got a flat, but the wheel seems to be permanently fixed to the car. And before you ask, yes, I took the lug nuts off. "
"Are they..."
I cut him off, "They're all the way off."
"OK, here's what you do: put a couple of the lugs part of the way back on (assuming you really did take them all the way off) and lower the jack as fast as you can. You might have to do this a couple of times."
"Right. And then what?"
"Well, if it loosens the wheel, you take it off - remember to jack the car back up and take the lug nuts back off - and put the spare on."
"Gotcha. What if that doesn't work?"
"If it doesn't work, you want to jack the car back up. Get the wheel a few inches of the ground. Then put the car in neutral, and push it backwards until you knock it off the jack. Maybe the impact will free the wheel."
"Maybe the impact will free the wheel? Are you making this up? That doesn't sound like a good idea to me."
"Trust me - I've done it hundreds of times. Nothing bad could possibly happen. You probably should get the kid out of the car, though, you know...just in case."
"Right. Thanks. And happy new year...I'll let you know how this turns out."

So I tried the rapid jack lowering. This is difficult to do with your typical dealer-provided trunk jack, which moves about a millimeter every half turn. Once you factor in the inevitable knuckle grinding on the pavement, it takes a minimum of eight minutes to get the jack completely lowered. So I pondered the next alternative: bouncing my car off the asphalt. It still seemed sort of extreme, but at this point what do I have to lose? The potential damage can't be any worse that that inflicted by the cutting torch that would be my next alternative.

In the end, desperation won out and I actually tried this irresponsible, dangerous, totally ill-advised course of action. In the end it didn't work, but my son enjoyed watching it. And he learned some new words from me, and I believe expanding one's vocabulary is a worthwhile pursuit in any case.

My next option was to call the Allstate 24-hour roadside assistance hotline. I dialed the number and was greeted by a pleasant sounding recording advising that my call may be monitored for training purposes. This was a complete lie because evidently my call was not even being monitored for answering purposes. I spent nearly a half hour on my cell phone being assured that my call was important to them, a representative would be with me as soon as possible, and I should please remain on the line. Well, I showed them, and didn't remain on the line. Yeah! Suck on that, Allstate!

My sister - the one responsible for my having one of the aforementioned brothers-in-law - called back to see how things were going.

"Scott? This is Lori...Dave and Aaron wanted me ask you to double check that you took the lug nuts off."
"I took the @#$% lug nuts off!"
"Well, did you get the tire changed?"
"No. I did not get the &^*%$ tire changed. I just spent half a @&*%$ hour on the #$@*& phone with #$%#@ing Allstate, and couldn't get a @&^%$* answer!"
"OK. I'm sensing that you're upset..."
In retrospect, I feel a little bad about all the swearing I did at my sister. It was actually pretty nice of her to call back to check on me. But she also once ran completely over me on her bicycle - literally, wheels went over my back - and more recently stole my rechargable batteries. She told our mother that she gave mine back and the ones in her camera are her own, which is patently false...but that's for the courts to decide. Anyway, the point is, I probably shouldn't have leveled such profanity at her - Sorry about that.

In the end, I called my wife who came and picked us up. My son and I made it downtown in time for the last hour of the game. We had a blast and the Blues won. the next morning, I finally got a tow truck out to the library. The driver walked over with a meter-long crowbar, and popped the wheel off like it was stuck on with chewing gum.

"Yeah, well, you'd never had gotten it off so easily had I not so cleverly removed the lugnuts."

You know what we need?

Here's what we need more of in the world: Giants. No, not the famous football team that made Bill Bellichik cry. And I don't mean people who are abnormally tall. I mean honest-to-God, fee-fie-foe-fum giants. There is no problem in the world that wouldn't be at least partially solved by involving a giant. For example, rush hour traffic? A small team of giants could pick cars up and sort them out. Kids put up a fuss at bedtime? A giant would put a stop to that pretty quickly, I imagine. I mean, even really big, global sorts of problems would be child's play for a giant. Consider world hunger...what do giants eat? Giant corn, giant potatoes, giant bratwurst. If they donated a portion of their giant food to the UN or something, people all over the world would eat like kings. Floods? Earthquakes? Hurricanes? Giants. Giants. Giants.Just something to think about...

What happened to Grace?

So I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska for a while when I was in grad school. It really was a good place, and I'd go back if I had an opportunity. Fairbanks left some marks on me, though. I moved up there with my first wife in 1997. Both of us were born and raised in Southern Baptist Churches (not literally, of course: I was born in a hospital, and raised in my parents house). We quickly got involved in a baptist church in Fairbanks, and made a lot of friends. I eventually became the young couples Sunday school teacher, the youth pastor, worship team member, and for one summer, the preacher. I attended all the meetings, went to the men's group functions, had a prayer partner - if it happened at or because of church, I was probably involved somehow. And I liked it, mostly. I had friends. I was important to people and they all treated me mostly with respect.

Then I started to question if that's really all there was to being a Christian: being nice to each other and filling positions in church programs. I slowly became disillusioned by it and wanted out. Eventually, I became very rebellious against God and church, but managed to keep it to myself for the most part. None of my church friends really cared what was going on with me, though, until my wife and I split. Within seconds, all of these people whom I had gladly served at church for several years, who had been my friends, scattered. I was an instant pariah. If anyone did speak to me, it was to be uncomfortably polite ("Just don't look him in the eye, dear...") or to castigate me. I left that church feeling used up, and discarded. In a word, I was lied to by people who had been like family.

I was still in school, studying geology, all this time. Now in your average American geology department, religious faith of any kind is a non-native species. What really sticks in my memory, though, is that when my non-believer friends learned what was happening in my life, they actually rallied around me. While they may have also thought I was making some bad choices, they remained my friends just the same. They took care of me. It all seemed, and still seems, so backwards.

I think back on those times now, and I still feel a little prickly about it. I never completely lost my faith in God, and the precepts of Christianity spelled out in the Bible resonate with more truth now than ever. But I have to say, I lost a lot of faith in Christians. I haven't yet recovered much of it, either. I have a hard time understanding why Christians - those who are supposed to understand grace as God meant it - are the most unforgiving, petty, small, dark-hearted, hateful people you'd ever want to meet. I realize I am generalizing, and I know there are some Christians who genuinely reflect the grace and peace of Christ. I just wish I knew where they all are.

Neon Jesus

So I started playing on a team in a church basketball league recently. I know next to nothing about the sport, and except for my freakish height (I am 6' 5"), offer very little to the team. But it's good exercise, and as non-athletic as I am, I still relish the competitiveness of sports. So I play basketball now.

Being a church league, though, there seems to be a need to make basketball into something more. I am a Christian myself, and actually attend the church that sponsors and hosts the league; I understand the biblical call to do all things for the glory of God. Fine. I also understand Jesus's exhortation to go out into all the world and make disciples. Again, fine. There seems to be a misunderstanding, though, about how to apply church-league basketball to these goals. Let me offer an example. In the three weeks or so that the league has been in play, I have been told no fewer than a half dozen times that bad language will not be tolerated. This, evidently, is the greatest offense one can commit on the court, and the only thing so far mentioned that will result in ejection from a game. And that's fine, I guess, but I wonder why bad language is seen as such an unforgivable infraction? The reason, I am told, is that church basketball is a "witnessing opportunity." In other words, guys who don't already believe in Christ will be convinced by our squeaky-clean language that Jesus loves them and offers abundant life. Really? Is this what Christian spirituality and discipleship is about - putting on a good face, and being nice? I think this is what keeps many people away from Christ. Jesus offered more than a self-help course in dressing for success, didn't he?

My basketball experience really is a microcosm of church life in general. We go to our various church functions, and we speak the right language. We spout the accepted answers to complex issues with very little thought, unaware that we gloss over some very deeply felt questions. In return we offer superficial answers, without even really knowing what we're saying. But as long as we appear before others as being spiritually insightful and pious, it's all good - nevermind our imperfect reality.

I think it's OK for Christians to play basketball just because it's fun. While I won't really advocate using bad language, I mean honestly, is it the worst thing that could happen?